In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester to answer at least three of the following questions:
What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements?
How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes?
What features can you plan into your units that might discourage the GOS?
Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
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1. The GOS article describes "authoritarian administrators who try to run classrooms from the main office." In my placement, I have seen some tension between classroom teachers and administrators. I sat in on a professional development meeting about testing and evaluation. An administrator explained to the teachers what they needed to put together to turn in to the state to show student growth. The requirements were not the same for all teachers - some had to put together very little information while others had to collect data on hundreds of students. The teachers expressed their concerns that this was not fair and would significantly take away from time they would normally put toward teaching. The administrator in the room told them that there was nothing he could do to make it easier for the teachers that had to do the most work. The teachers seemed frustrated that the quality of their classroom performance could suffer because of the extra work that was placed on them.
2. My cooperating teacher does an excellent job of integrating homework into classroom instruction. She frequently plans lessons that make it very hard for students to actively participate without having done the homework. This encourages students to complete the homework to the best of their abilities before coming to class. Students do not see the homework as a pointless activity because they realize that the knowledge they develop while doing homework will be called upon in class. I have also seen my cooperating teacher use homework answers in team games. Without completing the homework, students cannot contribute to their team's score in the game. The winning team often gets bonus points on an assignment or a piece of candy.
3. I think that integrating homework into everyday lessons, as I have seen my cooperating teacher do, is an effective means of discouraging the GOS. Also, asking students critical-thinking based questions instead of objective questions, when possible, discourages the sharing of answers and memorization while encouraging original thinking. Assigning different versions of homework (ex. same problems with different numerical values) and other assignments also makes the sharing of answers and "beating the system" more difficult.
Observation / Reflection #4: The Game of School
In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester to answer at
least three of the following questions:
- What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements?
- How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes?
- What features can you plan into your units that might discourage the GOS?
- Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
_1. The GOS article describes "authoritarian administrators who try to run classrooms from the main office." In my placement, I have seen some tension between classroom teachers and administrators. I sat in on a professional development meeting about testing and evaluation. An administrator explained to the teachers what they needed to put together to turn in to the state to show student growth. The requirements were not the same for all teachers - some had to put together very little information while others had to collect data on hundreds of students. The teachers expressed their concerns that this was not fair and would significantly take away from time they would normally put toward teaching. The administrator in the room told them that there was nothing he could do to make it easier for the teachers that had to do the most work. The teachers seemed frustrated that the quality of their classroom performance could suffer because of the extra work that was placed on them.
2. My cooperating teacher does an excellent job of integrating homework into classroom instruction. She frequently plans lessons that make it very hard for students to actively participate without having done the homework. This encourages students to complete the homework to the best of their abilities before coming to class. Students do not see the homework as a pointless activity because they realize that the knowledge they develop while doing homework will be called upon in class. I have also seen my cooperating teacher use homework answers in team games. Without completing the homework, students cannot contribute to their team's score in the game. The winning team often gets bonus points on an assignment or a piece of candy.
3. I think that integrating homework into everyday lessons, as I have seen my cooperating teacher do, is an effective means of discouraging the GOS. Also, asking students critical-thinking based questions instead of objective questions, when possible, discourages the sharing of answers and memorization while encouraging original thinking. Assigning different versions of homework (ex. same problems with different numerical values) and other assignments also makes the sharing of answers and "beating the system" more difficult.